One new wrinkle this year is that I have kids bringing their own notebooks. Last year we had social studies journals that were included with our new curricular materials. We had the option of getting them as consumables, and we were to provide input to our administrator about getting them again. I opted against it, seeing the journals at 2-4 dollars a piece being a massive outlay that was unnecessary.
Why was it unnecessary? While some of the pages were great, I opted to teach social studies as a study in reading. Instead of simply searching for content, questions like "What was the main idea of section 1.3?" end up being more effective. I still use some of the content area questions, but I help the kids less. Instead of "Label the landforms above," which corresponds to the EXACT SAME picture in the book, I ask them to "Name a landform related to land (not to be confused with those by water), and describe what it looks like." Kids then need to do one of two things:
1) examine the non-fiction feature carefully to determine what exactly makes a mountain different than a plain or basin...or
2) read the text carefully to determine what the actual definition is.
Either way kids are asked to do more with the reading they are doing. Combine that with instruction around main and supporting ideas (again, not included in social studies journal/consumable) and you've got a better forum for practicing non-fiction reading.
On Friday we'll actually start a 2+ day exploration into narrative writing by having kids think about the landforms of the US, and use their 4th grade experience with Lewis and Clark to write about how they would travel across the United States (1800's). There is a piece of writing in the social studies text they'll use as well. But it should be fun... a little foray into creative writing while applying content area knowledge.
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